Oklahoma City University was named a 2018 Best College Value by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
OCU ranked 71 out of the 100 private universities that made the list. The rankings are available online at kiplinger.com/links/colleges and will appear in print in the February 2018 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, on newsstands Jan. 9.
“Oklahoma City University offers an elite education at a reasonable price,” said Provost Kent Buchanan. “Our return to Kiplinger’s list is another testament to our academic rigor, dedicated faculty and excellent value.”
Introduced in 1998, the rankings now combine public schools, private universities and private liberal arts colleges into a single, comprehensive list. Kiplinger also ranks the 100 best values in each category. The analysis is based on objective measurements of academic quality and affordability, not subjective criteria.
“Our rankings, which weigh affordability alongside academic quality, are a great resource for students and their parents when sorting through college choices,” said Mark Solheim, editor of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. “We start with a universe of nearly 1,200 schools and trim the list using measures of academic quality. We then rank the schools based on cost and financial aid data. All 300 schools on our list are worth a look.”
The editors at Kiplinger’s Personal Finance start with data provided by Peterson’s, a college prep and data collection service. The list is then narrowed to the top schools based on measures of academic quality, including SAT or ACT scores, admission and retention rates, student-faculty ratios and four-year graduation rates.
The editors then rank the schools using cost and financial aid measures. Academic quality carries more weight than costs.
At Kiplinger.com, visitors have access to the "Find the Best College for You” tool and other resources that let readers sort by admission rate, average debt at graduation and other criteria for all schools, plus in-state and out-of-state cost for public colleges. A slide shows the top 10 schools in different categories, archives of past years’ rankings and an FAQ on the ranking methodology.
